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An Ancient Dream Manual: Artemidorus' The Interpretation of Dreams

Online ISBN:
9780191879524
Print ISBN:
9780198843825
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

An Ancient Dream Manual: Artemidorus' The Interpretation of Dreams

Peter Thonemann
Peter Thonemann
Forrest-Derow Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Wadham College, Oxford
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Published online:
23 January 2020
Published in print:
16 January 2020
Online ISBN:
9780191879524
Print ISBN:
9780198843825
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica (‘The Interpretation of Dreams’) is the only dream-book which has been preserved from Graeco-Roman antiquity. Composed around ad 200, it is a treatise and manual on dreams, their classification, and the various analytical tools which should be applied to their interpretation. Artemidorus travelled widely through Greece, Asia, and Italy to collect people’s dreams and record their outcomes, in the process casting a vivid light on social mores and religious beliefs in the Severan age. This book aims to provide the non-specialist reader with a readable and engaging road-map to this vast and complex text. It offers a detailed analysis of Artemidorus’ theory of dreams and the social function of ancient dream-interpretation; it also aims to help the reader to understand the ways in which Artemidorus might be of interest to the cultural or social historian of the Graeco-Roman world. The book includes chapters on Artemidorus’ life, career, and worldview; his conceptions of the human body, sexuality, the natural world, and the gods; his attitudes towards Rome, the contemporary Greek polis, and the social order; and his knowledge of Greek literature, myth and history. The book is intended to serve as a companion to the new translation of The Interpretation of Dreams by Martin Hammond, published simultaneously with this volume in the Oxford World’s Classics series.

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